The Question Trump Never Answered at His Meeting With Evangelicals

The men before me asked pertinent questions beginning with Dr. James Dobson's question on Court nominees. As a reminder, there will be between one and four nominations to the Supreme Court and hundreds of lower court nominations from this next administration. (As an aside, there will also be about 5,000 appointed personnel who will be the people who run this country from positions within the agencies and commissions.) In response to Dr. Dobson, Mr. Trump specifically and wholeheartedly reaffirmed his commitment to only appoint "pro-life" Constitutionalists to the court. He also added that he may add other names to his original list of eleven possible nominees but that they all will be duly vetted.

Following Dr. Dobson were other questions by Dr. David Jeremiah, Sammy Rodriguez, Tony Perkins, and, finally, Kelly Schackleford. Both Tony and Kelly asked Mr. Trump about issues in which religious rights of Christians would come into conflict with the GLBTQ community, basically whose rights reign supreme in cases of a business owner's right to abstain for making a cake or a military Chaplain's right to not officiate a "gay" wedding. In both cases, Donald Trump dodged. He either did not answer or said it would be decided by the courts. He rightly pointed out that he was the person, however, who would make the SCOTUS and lower court appointments. Clearly, his appointments would be better for religious freedom.

Trump really shined on two issues: Court appointments and Israel. I was very gratified to hear him for the first time give a full-throated support for America's closest ally in the Middle East, Israel. In the past, he has made statements about "remaining neutral" when, of course, there is no moral equivalency in the right of the Jewish State to exist and defend her people and the Palestinian wish to "wipe Israel off the map." This time Donald Trump rose to the occasion, giving a scathing assessment of the Iran deal as "One of the worse deals I have ever seen" and stating that "Obama has forsaken Israel." Both of those statements elicited nodding heads and applause.

There were, for me, only two real glaring omissions from the event. First, I would have liked to have heard some of his guiding principles in choosing a vice-presidential running mate. This appointment sets the tone for all of his other appointments and is, of course as they say, one heartbeat away from the presidency. A pro-life, social conservative with solid knowledge of both Washington and foreign policy would be a great help to him and a unifying force for the base.

But the second dark spot of the day for me was that he was not questioned directly on the issue of abortion. I believe him when he says that he has had a pro-life conversion, but what does that mean, especially on funding issues? This is particularly sad to me because I was slated to be question number seven, and I planned to find out. I wasn't given the opportunity to get to the bottom of the issue that I believe is a litmus test for leadership.

So, here is my question. You judge the worthiness.

"Mr. Trump, you are now pro-life, but you say Planned Parenthood "does good work." What we know about Planned Parenthood is that they are the nation's largest abortion provider, that 94 in 100 pregnant women visiting them have an abortion, that by Planned Parenthood's own admission, they perform no mammograms, that they are under congressional investigation for selling baby body parts like hearts, lungs, brains, and tongues, while grossly violating HIPPA patient privacy law, and that all their important, non-abortive healthcare services and more can be served by the 13,000 community health centers which outnumber Planned Parenthood's clinics 20 to 1. So, given all these facts, if we deliver it to your desk, would you pledge to sign legislation like Sen. Joni Ernst's bill, S1881, which simply redirects the half billion dollars in federal funding of Planned Parenthood to these health clinics?"

I am still hoping for an answer to this essential question, because to be pro-life, one must be willing to chip away at the institution of big abortion, and the abortion establishment is indeed Planned Parenthood. There is no doubt in my mind that Donald Trump is much more closely aligned with my views than Hillary Clinton in almost every area. He has my head, but in order for him to win my heart, I need him to answer the question above. Please join me in praying that I am able to get the right answer.

Penny Young Nance is the president of Concerned Women for America (CWA) and CWALAC. Nance most recently served as President of Nance and Associates and as Special Advisor for the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), where she advised the Chairman and the Commissioners on media and social issues. Before joining the FCC, Nance was founder and President of the Kids First Coalition, a non-profit organization focused on educating Capitol Hill, the media, and the public on a variety of issues related to children.